Cultural Modeling in Two Eras of U.S. Food Protest: Grahamites (1830s) and Organic Advocates (1960s–70s)

Abstract

This article extends theories of social movement diffusion to encompass other kinds of cultural modeling. Using a comparison of two cases of food protest in the United States—the health food movement of William Sylvester Graham (1830s) and the early organic movement (1960s-1970s)—I emphasize similarities in underlying grievances and in the general advocacy of natural food alternatives. The two movements differed dramatically, however, in framing and tactics. I focus on contrasts in the religious significance they assigned to diet, in their democratic commitments, in the relationship they constructed between personal transformation and social change, and in their use of state-centered strategies. These frames and tactics transposed to food reform more general scripts associated with cultural institutions and movements of the time, particularly evangelical churches and temperance (Grahamites), and environmentalism, the New Left, and the wider counterculture (organic advocates).